Friendships

This morning, I received an email from a college mate. He sent to the classmates to remind us the gathering we attended a year ago in Shanghai.

The gathering was a good one. I was so happy to see the classmates after all the years, some of them I haven’t seen since the graduation. During the gathering, I got chance to talk to few male classmates whom I seldom talked to during the college years. I know that it sounds odd, but that was the case. At the time, it was not allowed to develop romantic relationship between the students. The management was very series about it. To avoid getting into trouble, most of students stopped talking to the students of opposite sex.

The classmate, who emailed, was the same one organized the gathering. We exchanged emails before the gathering and chat a lot during the gathering. We became good friends. When we said bye in Shanghai, I gave him a hug to thank him for organizing such enjoyable gathering. Both of us recalled that we did not shake hands before, in fact, we talked about ten sentences, at most, during four years of our college life. What a belated friendship.

Last month, I had lunch with a friend. I knew her since few years ago when both of us volunteered in the same non-profit organization. We did not communicate much during that time. Later she left and I did not see her again until I ran into her at a seminar on campus last year. We chat in the hallway when the seminar ended. We were happy that we got reconnected. Since then she became HM reader. She emails me with feedbacks almost every week. At lunch, she taught me a lot by sharing her life experience with me. She is elder than me, but we communicated without any age gap. She gave me an ikebana vase as gift at lunch.

The flower arrangement for this week was arranged in this special vase. The materials were from another friend’s garden. She is a flower arranger and a painter, she taught painting at college as well. Very few ikebana arrangers had formal art education. She is one of them. I enjoy talk to her and learn from her.

This flower arrangement is to celebrate the friendship. Enjoy and Happy Monday.

In Friendship through Flowers,
Yirou.

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